Donkeys and Elephants and Delegates,oh my!
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After flaunting DNC rules, Florida group plans mass whine-in
fldeservesrecognition.com — Hillary's "Rapid Response" email list is sending this one around - apparently this group exists to "protect the voting rights of Florida citizens." Is it to protest the kind of things that happened in 2000? No. It's to ensure that Hillary gets to count delegates that were stripped when they broke party rules.
franklymister- 19 diggs
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- pjdscott, on 04/12/2008, -0/+2From an outsider's point of view, it all sounds so corrupt (but then politics in my part of the world has similar 'ethics'). After the debacle of Florida, a concerned group of citizens organize voters' protection. Heigh ho! In reality, it's a sad day for US democracy when people (politically organized or not) feel the need to establish such groups. Watch this space!
- franklymister, on 04/12/2008, -0/+2It's very Orwellian doublespeak. They're "protecting the voting rights of citizens," but only one group of citizens - the ones that voted for their candidate.
In 2000, votes went uncounted or miscounted in the general election, possibly changing the occupancy of the White House. The Supreme Court stepped in because it was a matter of Constitutional law.
This isn't about the general election, it's about internal party rules. There are no laws governing how parties choose their nominees, so no court to appeal to.
The Democratic National Committee decreed that only four states could have primaries before Feb. 5th, and Florida wasn't one of them. The state of Florida, in an attempt to get more attention (and political promises from nominees), moved theirs earlier. The DNC gave them 30 days to move it back or lose their delegates at the Democratic Convention, where the nominee is chosen. They refused, and so the DNC took away their delegates.
As a result, many voters stayed home on the day of Florida's primary, because they were told their vote didn't count anyway. Hillary Clinton "won" in that state, but it's unclear which campaigns were active in Florida, and what the vote would have been like if it were legitimate. So now, because Clinton is losing the race for the nomination, she is looking for anywhere she can pick up a couple of extra delegates.
That's how you get this group. They're not angry at the state of Florida for breaking party rules and throwing away their vote. They're not asking for a chance to vote again in a fair and recognized primary. They're saying that Hillary should just get the delegates she "won" in the invalid vote that was held earlier. Never mind that it would disenfranchise all those voters who obeyed the party rules and stayed home that day - it would net Hillary extra delegates, and that's all this is about.
- franklymister, on 04/12/2008, -0/+2It's very Orwellian doublespeak. They're "protecting the voting rights of citizens," but only one group of citizens - the ones that voted for their candidate.
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